The central myth of the sixties was that [its] wretched excess was really a serious quest for new values. – George Will

The Chronicle of an Undeception: 

Freedom and Order

by Michael Bauman

I. The Tragic Vision of Life

I confess to believing at one time or another nearly all the pervasive and persistent fantasies of the sixties. In the words of Joni Mitchell’s anthem for the Woodstock nation, I thought all I had to do was “get back to the land to set my soul free.” I thought that flowers had power, that love could be free, and that the system was to blame. By 1968, I had the whole world figured out. I knew the cause of every evil — America — and I knew the solution to every problem — freedom and tolerance.

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I had to learn in the last half of the twentieth century what was already old news even in the days of Jeremiah, the ancient prophet, who wrote,

Stand at the crossroads, and look,

and ask for the ancient paths, 

where the good way lies;

and walk in it, and find rest for your souls (Jer. 6: 16).

Wisdom is found by walking the “ancient paths.” Those “ancient paths” led through the wilderness, through the sea, even through the valley of the shadow of death, and not through Berkeley, not Columbia, not the Village, not Watts, not Haight-Ashbury, not Altamont, and not Woodstock.
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II. Sixties Redivivus .........


III. Undeception Redivivus?  ..........

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